27 August 2018 | EV Sales Soar To One Million In Europe, Mercedes Unveils First Image Of Electric EQC and Tesla Semi Shows Up Major Freight Operator

Well good morning, good afternoon and good evening, wherever you are in the world, hello and welcome to the Monday 27th August edition of EV News Daily. It’s Martyn Lee here with the news you need to know about electric cars and the move towards sustainable transport.

Thank you to MYEV.com for helping make this show, they’ve built the first marketplace specifically for Electric Vehicles. It’s a totally free marketplace that simplifies the buying and selling process, and help you learn about EVs along the way too.

ELECTRIC CAR SALES SOAR TO 1MILLION IN EUROPE

“There are now more than a million electric cars in Europe after sales soared by more than 40% in the first half of the year, new figures reveal.” according to Adam Vaughan writing for The Guardian, and someone I’d say is well worth following on Twitter too: “Europe hit the milestone nearly a year after China, which has a much larger car market, but ahead of the US, which is expected to reach the landmark later this year driven by the appetite for Tesla’s latest model. Between January and June around 195,000 plug-in cars were sold across the EU, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland, a 42% increase on the same period a year before.”

A note of caution those are the number for plug ins, which includes plug in hybrid cars which do burn fossil fuels. By the end of the year that total will be 1.35million, that’s not only a lot of car but a lot of chargers being installed at homes and businesses, a lot of calls to insurance companies and a lot of people telling their friends ‘you have to buy an EV!’

The share is on average 2% but there are the usual outliers, like Norway at a massive 37%, although the total sales are relatively small and look to be overtaken by Germany by pure volume this year.

“For the first time ever, global sales of electric vehicles (EVs) break through the barrier of 400,000 units per quarter. EV sales for Q2 2018 were around 411,000, up 77% over the same quarter last year.” reports Global Fleet: “Q4 2017 saw global sales just under 400,000, only to dip just below 300,000 again in Q1 2018. Much of the fluctuation is caused by the Chinese market, which on its own represented 225,000 units in Q2 or almost 55% of global EV sales in Q2. In the past quarter, EVs accounted for 3.9% of all car sales in China. The manufacturers benefiting the most from the increase in EV sales in China are BYD and JAC Motors, both Chinese-owned; and Nissan, Toyota, Renault and Tesla. After China, the second-largest EV market in the world is Europe, accounting for 22% (90,000 units) of global EV sales last quarter, followed by North America, at 19% (78,000 units).”

A 14 second video made it’s way onto YouTube today, simply showing the front corner of the new Mercedes EQC turning it’s lights on. There’s a slide at the end which confirms the full unveiling of the car will be next week.

EQ will be the sub brand of the Mercedes electric cars, with the EQC the first of those to be built from scratch as a pure EV.

On Twitter Daimler said: “Mercedes-Benz is flipping the switch: On September 4th, we will present our first all-electric Mercedes-Benz model of our new product and technology brand EQ. Here’s the very first design detail. Stay tuned!”

The most recent spy shots of the car saw the usual padding and camouflage make way for a more conventional wrap, which showed off the curves and lines of the car, plus more of the finer details.

I’ll stop going on about it, but the 70kWh battery still seems so small to me compared to the likes of the Jaguar I-PACE and Audio e-tron Quattro with 90 and 95kWh batteries respectively. Even though Mercedes has said it will do 310 miles according to the old fashion NEDC way of measuring, for an SUV that size and weight I can’t see it doing more than 220 miles in the real world, but I’d love to be proven wrong.

Even though the unveiling is next week, you won’t be able to get hold of one until next year.

TESLA SEMI SHOWS UP AT J.B.HUNT

For those not in the USA, obviously including myself, a bit of an education on J.B. Hunt. A major trucking firm with more than 12,000 trucks and 100,000 containers in the fleet.

It’s interesting how so many chin-stroking analysts have their say on the Tesla Semi and give their opinions online and in blogs, but follow the money. And J.B.Hunt were one of the first to place a reservation for the Tesla Semi.

Fred at Electrek says: “we discussed during our podcast earlier today, if Tesla can deliver on its expected cost of operation of $1.20 per mile, it will be a no-brainer for companies like J.B. Hunt to quickly convert their fleet to Tesla Semi. Diesel truck makers don’t believe Tesla can bring to market a long-range all-electric truck with those kinds of economics as soon as next year, which is when Tesla plans to release the vehicle. They want to see the proof of the vehicle’s capacity and economic advantages.”

And photos which shows up on Twitter and Reddit later showed a long queue around the parking lot of people waiting to take a turn sitting in the cab.

If the Tesla Semi can cover 100k-200k miles a year that a serious amount of pollution off the road for each and every truck. The cab pics look pretty comfortable too, pleasant and more like a car than a commercial vehicle, which is good to see because they’ll be bought on economics not comfort. But for those who spend their life in that seat, it’s good news.

I almost didn’t talk about this because it’s a show car, it’s a concept, it’s not really real. It’s just a bit of fun and folly for Mercedes. “Mercedes-Benz unveiled the EQ Silver Arrow show car at Monterey Car Week in Pebble Beach. The one-seater electric EQ Silver Arrow is an homage to the successful record-breaking twelve-cylinder W 125 built by Mercedes-Benz in 1937 as a Grand Prix racing car.” says Green Car Congress: “The EQ Silver Arrow is conceived as an electric vehicle with an output of 738 hp. The thin rechargeable battery in the underbody has a useable capacity of approximately 80 kWh”

“New forecasting research, based on analysis of trends revealed in Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) sales data, predicts that electric car sales will surpass those of diesel in July 2020” reports LondonLovesBusiness.com: “Diesel cars have continuously slumped following the VW emission scandal last year and the government announcement that they will be banned by 2040. With Nissan and Toyota stating that they will begin phasing out diesel cars from 2021 and latest data showing that sales have fallen by 37.2% over the last year, it appears the end could be near for the fuel type. “

COMMUNITY

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